‘Who? Never mind. No one here knows anything about it. You’re just making all this up.’
‘Who was she? What did she do to you?’
‘I’m going now,’ he said, stepping past her and yanking the curtain aside.
Korya followed, feeling unaccountably pleased with herself. They emerged from the small hovel that had once been some sort of store. The breeze was cool but not cold, and an unseasonal thaw softened the air. As they set out, she saw how many of the long-abandoned buildings were now occupied once more. Blue-skinned Ilnap had formed enclaves, although there was nothing festive in their efforts to establish some sort of community, and more often than not they found themselves glowering across at bands of Dog-Runners encamped on the other side of the street, who were in the habit of treating abodes as if they were caves, the rubbish piling up in front of the gaping doorways.
Before long, however, she and Arathan left the inhabited reaches of the dead city behind, making their way down barren, silent streets. Here and there a squat tower had tumbled and the broken stone spilled out into passageways, blocking their progress and forcing them to seek out the narrower alleys threading through overgrown gardens.
‘Imagine,’ said Arathan, ‘just abandoning all of this. Imagine, a simple argument from one Jaghut, from Gothos, bringing down an entire civilization. One wouldn’t think such things possible. Could the same happen to us Tiste? Could someone just step forward and argue us out of existence?’
‘Of course not,’ Korya replied. ‘We prefer our arguments messy, ugly, with plenty of spilled blood.’
He glanced sharply across at her. ‘More news of the civil war?’
‘Deniers came into the camp yesterday. Hunters who’d come home to their forest camps to find their mates slaughtered. The children too. Those hunters have lost their black skin. They’re now grey, as grey as the Dog-Runners when they smear themselves in ash.’ She shrugged. ‘Rituals of mourning, only with the Deniers, it’s permanent.’
Arathan fell silent, as if considering her words, as they worked their way through the ruins. They had moved past the squatters now, and the solemnity of a discarded city hung heavy in the still air.
‘I have to go back,’ Korya said.
‘Back? To what? You were made a hostage. You’re not yet of the proper age to be released.’
‘Haut’s going with Hood, whatever that means. He’s been looking to hand me off to some other master, or tutor, or whatever title fits. But I won’t go. I’m not interested in listening to old men or, even worse, old women, and all their tired, worn-out ideas.’
‘You’re quick to reject the wisdom of your elders, Korya.’
‘And you waste your life away scribbling useless confessions from a suicidal Jaghut too weak-kneed to actually go through with it. In case you haven’t been paying attention, sorcery is now among us, wild currents of magic. All you need to do is reach for it.’
‘And have you?’
She frowned. ‘Haut tells me my aspect awaits elsewhere. It’s why he made me a Mahybe.’
‘Oh? And what is your, uh, aspect?’
‘Kurald Galain. Darkness. The sorcery of Mother Dark herself.’
Ahead, seemingly standing alone, oddly distinct from all the hovels surrounding it, was a stone house with a peaked roof and a squat corner tower. A low wall marked the yard and a gaping gateway the entrance on to the path. ‘That doesn’t make sense,’ said Arathan. ‘She doesn’t grant anyone the gift of sorcery.’
‘Doesn’t matter. I’ll just take what I need. It’s important. Haut explained everything. Blood has been spilled. Hood’s wife slain by an Azathanai, corrupting all the sorcery K’rul unleashed. That needs answering, by a purifying form of sorcery, what Haut calls elemental. And the magic of Dark is elemental.’
‘And Light?’
‘The same.’
‘So Urusander and his legion have a right to the power they seek. A just cause for this civil war.’ When she said nothing, he gestured towards the stone house. ‘There it is. An Azath House.’
‘Doesn’t matter if the cause is just, if the way of achieving it is a crime.’
Arathan grunted. ‘Gothos would agree with you. In fact, something of that sentiment is at the core of his argument against civilization. The crimes of progress, of every self-serving rationale for destroying something in the name of creating something new, presumably better. He says a culture’s value system is in fact a shell game. It changes in the name of convenience. The stone is under one of the shells, meaning all the others are hollow, and therein lies the hypocrisy of a civilization’s pronounced set of values. Even the weight of those values – those stones – changes depending on the whims of the one running the game.’ After a moment of silence following his words, he glanced at Korya, to find her staring back intently. ‘What?’
‘It’s easy to find flaws. It’s much harder to find solutions.’
‘That’s because there aren’t any. Solutions, I mean. We are imperfect creatures, and the society we create cannot help but reflect those imperfections, or even exaggerate them. The spark of tyranny resides in every one of us. From this, we find tyrannical despots terrorizing entire nations. We are prone to jealousy, and from that, armies invade, lands are stolen and the bodies of victims are stacked like cordwood. We lie to hide our crimes and for this to work, historians need to glide over past atrocities. And so it goes, on and on. In the end, honesty is the enemy of us all. We wear civilization like a proud mask. But it’s still a mask.’
‘Gothos deserves a kick between the legs,’ Korya said, even as she faced the Azath House and set off towards the gateway. Something inside her had abruptly closed up, like the slamming shut of some hidden door.
Arathan saw the sudden flatness come to her eyes, but said nothing, even as he felt a faint pang of something that might be regret. As she approached the Azath House, he followed. ‘He’d not disagree with you.’
‘That’s no consolation.’
‘Perhaps not.’
‘And this is why I’m done listening to old men. Hope dies to ten thousand small cuts, and these men around us, Arathan, they are most terribly scarred.’ She shook her head, her hair, grown long, shimmering upon her shoulders. ‘Civilization is all about restraint. That’s what laws and rules are for. To check our more venal impulses—’
‘Until those laws and rules are twisted around them, becoming a travesty of justice.’
‘He’s made you old before your time,’ Korya said. ‘He shouldn’t have done that.’
‘Flawed and imperfect, even the Lord of Hate.’
‘I think I’m going to give up on you, Arathan. Go on, join Hood and Haut and Varandas and all the rest. But it seems to me, of all the enemies you might choose, death is the simplest. So, take your easy way out, and good luck to you.’
As she turned away, Arathan said, ‘Wait! What about the Azath House? It’s here, you’re only steps from the path! Did you come all this way just to turn round again? I thought you wanted to explore it?’
Korya hesitated, and then shrugged. ‘Fine, since I’m here.’
She passed through the gateway, on to the flagstoned path. Arathan followed her, remaining a step behind.
The yard to either side of the wending path was a tangled mess of sinkholes and humped mounds. A few small, scraggly trees surmounted the mounds, their branches twisted and bearing only a few of the last season’s leaves, wrinkled and black. The path made a sinuous approach to the two stone steps and narrow landing at the foot of a heavy, wooden door.
‘That looks solid,’ Arathan observed, eyeing the door.
‘When did it … appear?’
‘Gothos said a thousand years ago.’
‘That door isn’t a thousand years old, Arathan. Maybe a hundred, or even less.’
He shrugged. ‘The fittings are iron, blackened but no rust. And that doesn’t make sense, either, does it?’
All of the windows fronting the house were shuttered, again with
wood, and no light leaked from between the weathered slats.
‘No one lives here,’ Korya said. ‘It feels … dead.’
Stepping past her, Arathan walked up to the door. He made a fist and thumped on the thick planks of wood. There was no echo, no reverberation. He might as well have been pounding on a solid wall. Glancing back over a shoulder, he saw Korya still on the path, one hand held palm-up, and in that palm sat the acorn. There was speculation in her study of the yard to one side.
Arathan drew a breath, minded to voice a warning, when with an offhand gesture she tossed the acorn into the yard.
‘Oh,’ Arathan managed.
Where the acorn had landed amidst yellowed grasses, the earth suddenly heaved, rising and then slumping over, building a mound of steaming black soil.
Behind Arathan the stones of the Azath House groaned. Spinning round, he saw grit trickling like rain down the pitted façade. An instant later Korya joined him, her expression slightly wild.
From the fresh mound in the yard a tree was now growing, branches twisting out from a stunted trunk that visibly thickened. Roots snaked out to grip the mound.
The house groaned again, and Arathan heard a dull click. Turning, he reached for the latch. The door opened, and at a gentle push swung soundlessly inward, revealing a short corridor flanked by alcoves. The light spilling in reached no further.
‘The tree is trembling,’ Korya said, her voice unsteady and faintly breathless. ‘As if it’s in pain.’
‘What was that acorn?’ Arathan asked, even as he edged closer to the door’s threshold.
‘A Finnest.’
‘What’s that?’
She licked her lips. ‘Lots of things. A place in which to hide your power away, or a piece of your soul. Even a secret you want to keep from yourself.’ She hesitated, and then added, ‘Sometimes it’s a prison.’
‘A prison?’
‘There was a god inside,’ she suddenly said. ‘Ancient, forgotten. Someone shed blood in the camp and summoned it. That was a mistake, but Haut – me and Haut – we trapped it.’
‘You and Haut, was it?’
‘You saw! I had the acorn, not him, right? Yes, the two of us!’
The tree was now as tall as Arathan, but twisted, nightmarish, bleeding sap from swollen fissures in its trunk, its branches shivering incessantly. ‘That’s an angry god,’ he said.
‘Doesn’t matter. It’s not going anywhere.’
‘Are you sure? I’d say it was fighting to get out, and whatever is trying to hold it down is in trouble. What I want to know is, what made you throw it into the yard?’
‘I don’t know. It just felt right.’
One of the larger branches split with a sharp crack. Arathan took Korya by the shoulder and pulled her with him as he crossed the threshold. Once clear he shut the door. The latch settled into place.
The darkness slowly faded.
‘Why did you do that?’ Korya asked. ‘Now we’re stuck in here.’
‘I doubt it,’ he replied. ‘See, the lock is a simple one: just lift it clear and the door opens.’
‘Fine, but who opened it the first time?’
* * *
Haut found Hood at the meagre hearth with its illusionary fire, the cold flames flickering in the gloom. Squatting down opposite, he spoke in a low tone. ‘We have a problem.’
‘I know.’
‘We pretty much killed that Azath House, and what’s left has been dying for centuries. Whatever that elder spirit was, it’s a powerful bastard, too powerful for that old yard.’
‘Nine of our kin fed that yard,’ Hood muttered, his hands hovering above the flames. ‘None made it back out, no matter what we did to that house.’
‘That was long ago, Hood, when it still had some spine.’
‘Your thoughts?’
‘Summon a Builder.’
Hood bared his tusks in a bitter grin. ‘You test my temper, captain.’
‘Then what do you suggest?’
‘The Seregahl.’
Haut squinted across at Hood. ‘Not company you’d willingly keep, then.’
‘Sheer arrogance has gifted them godly status. They grate. They pall. They earn endless derision from the other Toblakai, and fierce enmity from the Thelomen. Worse yet, they have forgotten the art of bathing.’
‘Set them a challenge, will you?’
‘The best outcome is they succeed even as they fail. I imagine our nine lost kin will oblige me in welcoming them to the yard.’
‘And the dying house?’
‘Summon your Builder if necessary, Haut. I doubt it’ll rush here, eager as a pup.’
Haut continued staring at Hood for a few moments longer, and then with a sigh he straightened. ‘She’s a precipitous child, I’ll grant you. Yet—’
‘Her instincts were sound.’
‘Just so,’ Haut said, nodding.
‘Send the Seregahl to me, then,’ Hood said. ‘They deem themselves worthy of my vanguard? Empty words. I will see them tested.’
‘In the Azath yard?’
‘In the Azath yard.’
‘Hood, you will be the death of us all.’
Hood barked a laugh. ‘I will indeed, Haut. Do you now hesitate?’
‘I need to find her a minder.’
‘No you don’t. Arathan will be with her. Together, they will return to Kurald Galain.’
Haut scowled. ‘Prophecy now, too?’
‘No,’ Hood replied, ‘I will send them on their way home by a more prosaic pronouncement. My boot to their backsides.’
* * *
The nameless leader of the Seregahl clawed through his tangled beard, forcing out twigs and old flecks of food that drifted down on to his chest. ‘A voice roars in challenge,’ he said in a caustic rumble. ‘It aches in the skull. In my skull. In the skulls of my companions. We are not like the other Toblakai. We have come into power. Others of our kind worship us, and rightly so. The Thelomen and Thel Akai fear us—’
There was a snort from just beyond the pallid light of Hood’s hearth.
As one, the eleven Seregahl turned at the sound, various visages twisting in various ways. Haut stifled a sigh and then grunted. ‘Don’t mind her,’ he said to the Seregahl leader. ‘A curious Thel Akai. Seems in the habit of following you lot around, in case you haven’t noticed.’
The leader bared his yellow teeth. ‘Oh, we have noticed, captain. Though she’d rather hide like a coward in the gloom.’
The vague, hulking figure in the darkness seemed to shift slightly. ‘I but await one of you to wander off,’ she replied. ‘Then I would challenge that one, and kill him. Instead, you find courage only in your pack. I name you bullies and cowards.’
Haut rubbed at his face and swung round to face the Thel Akai woman. ‘Enough, Siltanys Hes Erekol. Choose another time for such challenges. Hood has need of these Seregahl.’
‘Yet Hood sits there and says nothing.’
‘Nonetheless.’
After a long moment, the Thel Akai named Erekol made a motion that might have been a shrug, and then stepped back into the gloom, and moments later was gone from all sight.
The Seregahl leader was still grinning. ‘Many are our challengers. We dispense with each in our own time.’
‘Ah,’ murmured Hood from where he sat by his fire, ‘then it is true, then, what Siltanys Hes Erekol had to say. Unwilling to disassemble this glowering pack so delighting in its strut and raised hackles.’
The leader scowled. ‘We are an army. An elite company. We fight as one. Let Erekol collect up more of her kind and then choose the field. We will slay her and every fool with her. But you, Hood, what reason this mocking and insult? Have you not proclaimed us your vanguard? Have you not recognized our ferocity?’
‘I have doubts,’ Hood replied. ‘Many formidable warriors have now joined my … legion. Many are worthy of taking the vanguard.’
‘Gather them up,’ the Seregahl leader growled. ‘In sufficient number to stan
d before me and my kin. This will answer your doubts.’
‘At the loss of too many worthy allies,’ Hood said, shaking his head. ‘Did not Captain Haut speak to you of this ancient enemy? Did you not acknowledge the irritation of its endless roaring in your skulls? I would send you to it, and charge you with silencing the vile creature. Show me your prowess in this manner, Seregahl, and the van is yours.’
The leader grunted, drawing from his back his massive twin-bladed axe. ‘This we can do!’
Haut cleared his throat. ‘Very well then, my friends. If you will follow me?’
‘Lead on, captain!’
When the echoes of the troop’s footfalls finally fell away, the Thel Akai woman reappeared, striding up to face Hood with the hearth between them. Her broad, wide-cheeked face was flat and colourless in the reflected light. ‘The games you indulge in, Hood.’
‘Ah, Erekol, do join me, whilst I explain the lancing of boils.’
‘I could do that as easily as some ancient hoary god trapped under a tree. One at a time, as I said.’
Hood studied her for a long moment. ‘I know something of your tale. Your … reasons. But have you not a surviving son?’
‘Left in the care of others.’
‘Are you here in the name of vengeance alone, or do you seek to join my legion?’
‘Your legion? Your mob of fools, you mean.’
‘I have not yet decided on a title.’
She laughed, and then settled into a squat. ‘Vengeance,’ she said. ‘The Seregahl spring their cowardly ambushes, and Thel Akai husbands weep. I’m fed up with their shit, and all those obnoxious proclamations. Thus, I am here to kill your vaunted vanguard, and yet you defy me again and again. What am I to make of that?’
‘Where is your son?’
‘Aboard a stout ship.’
‘In what sea?’
‘West. They ply the Furrow Strait, hunting dhenrabi.’
‘Near the High King’s lands, then.’
She shrugged. ‘Thel Akai fear no one.’
‘Unwise. The High King has set his protection upon the dhenrabi, and their breeding waters.’
‘My son is safe. What matters it to you, Hood?’
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